A Repeat
by Redderhead
Summary: This is my sequel to 'Meant to be' - please read that one first or this might not make sense. Magnus & James realise who they really are. Johnlock in a rather...different light! Enjoy!


…_Wow. I really wasn't expecting the phenomenal response that I did receive with regard to my last story; Meant To Be! Thank you so much to my entire audience, you are all wonderful – go and eat some chocolate to celebrate your wonderfull-ness._

_I hope I have done my first story justice by writing this sequel. Please enjoy and remember that I still own nothing except the clothes I'm currently wearing...I own those outright, I promise._

**A Repeat**

Magnus Cumberbatch was a very strange individual. His 23 year old face was angular and sharp but had the appearance of soft and smooth. His hair was all unruly curls and never seemed to lay the same way – but it was always pristine and smart. His eyes were cold, calculating and sharp, but could look so warm and familiar at times. Magnus Cumberbatch was an oxymoron with a short temperament and an ignorance of feelings.

James Freeman, on the other hand, was a wholesome 25 year old Medical Graduate, with morals and loyalty woven into him since birth. The recent loss of his only remaining family – his mother – had knocked him down mentally and he had worked himself a little too hard at the local surgery lately.

The two men lived together in London's very central North Gower Street, in a homely flat that had recently been owned by James' mother. James advertised in a broadsheet for a suitable flatmate, non-smoker, no pets, no insomniacs and no students. No less than 24 hours had passed before Magnus showed up on his doorstep, very confident and mysterious; James had taken to him immediately.

It had now been seven months since then, and what a time it had proved to be. With James by his side; Magnus had become a very powerful standalone force of the MET's management, directing its detectives towards the correct lines of investigation. He had three detective inspectors wrapped around his slender fingers but James was wrapped tighter.

James had given up his post at the clinic just over two months into his acquaintance with Magnus, realising that the taller man had need of him.

Recently, however, James had been experiencing some phenomenal déjà vu.

When mornings had arrived and James had been kept up listening to countless violin concertos during the early hours of the morning. James hadn't minded – there was something oddly familiar about it, and he had taken comfort in the melodies that drifted through the dark rooms.

Other days when James had come back from the supermarket with fresh milk to find his flatmate lying on his mothers couch with innumerable smokers' patches stuck to his forearm and even his face. James hadn't shouted at Magnus for it because he felt that he had already lectured him in the past and it was worthless trying now – even though he was sure he never had.

When James defended Magnus loyally to Vinette Donovon and Greg Graves at Scotland Yard, he didn't feel that he needed to justify anything to himself.

On this particular day, James watched Magnus idly as he poured a lime green liquid into a heated beaker half full of an electric blue substance.

"You are feeling it again aren't you?" Magnus said without looking up.

James quietly chastised himself – he had forgotten about Magnus and his 'peripheral vision' lecture.

"Sorry, I just feel there's something I am…I dunno…do you feel it?" James asked rather inarticulately.

Magnus put down his beakers and removed his gloves, turning to James as he removed his safety glasses.

"Sometimes, when you make my tea, or force me to eat. I get it when we are on a chase together. Certainly more frequent than it used to be." Magnus said thoughtfully.

"Have you ever experienced it without me?" James asked curiously.

"No" Magnus replied with a light cough before turning back to his experiment.

"Me neither…without you, I mean." James said carefully.

After a moments pause between them in their red living room, John worked up enough courage to ask Magnus something that had been nagging at his brain for a long time.

"Magnus, are you…are you asexual?" James asked quietly.

Magnus turned his head sharply to survey his flatmate closely.

"No" the younger man said dully.

"Good, right" James said abruptly, looking down at his bare feet that were stretched out in front of him.

"James, I am, flattered by your interest but I'm-" Magnus started.

"Just then! Did you get déjà vu just then?" James exclaimed. "Like it's a repeat episode on TV that you haven't seen for a long time"

"Not just then, no" Magnus replied with a raised eyebrow towards his flatmate.

James, pulling confidence from nowhere in particular, stood from his chair and approached the detective slowly.

"I sometimes have dreams you know" James started quietly, stopping at the foot of their shared dining room table – currently lined with glass test tubes, beakers, Bunsen burners and, for some reason, a human hand. "Dreams of you, you look slightly different, and you dress smartly. I sometimes dream that you jump from a very high building and I see your body. Other times I dream…I dream that you…"

"Dreams do not mean anything, James, they are simply the cerebral part of your brain making sense of every day life. It is a possibility that traumatic events could cause a dream based closely on fact, but otherwise, they do not mean a thing." Magnus explained dully.

James, quite confident in his own sexuality – or so he thought – surprisingly had no quibbles with bending slightly in order to frame his very _male_ flatmates' face with his hands, and pressing a kiss to his bow shaped lips. James was stunned by how normal it felt – just like a habit he had once had.

The kiss was brief, inexperienced and simple and James pulled away with a look of shock and awe written on his skin.

"John" Magnus breathed, his eyelids remaining closed as his forehead rested gently upon the doctors'.

"What did you just call me?" James asked after a seconds' pause.

Magnus opened his eyes in shock. "John, you're John, I don't know…anyone called John" he said in a fluster.

"'John', it didn't…it felt…god help me, it felt _right_" James whispered gently as he leaned back into the detective, kissing him once more.

It didn't take long for hands to feel what was already familiar to the two men; breaths were gasped when realisations hit both simultaneously and knocked them strongly apart.

"Sherlock" James breathlessly exclaimed taking another step back to steady himself on the back of his armchair "Oh, my god, Sherlock"

"John" Magnus replied in shock before walking toward the shorter man and kissing him once more.

"Woah, woah, how do I know you?" James stammered as he leaned back.

"John, don't you remember?" Magnus implored. "Think, John, think!"

James stared at Magnus as though he was mad, but when their lips collided once more; images, memories and forbidden knowledge flooded his system. He pictured Sherlock at the lab in St. Barts, he smiled against the taller mans' lips when he remembered their first kiss and winced when he felt the ghost of his bullet wound and cracked ribs.

Simultaneously they revisited their wedding and John saw a glimpse of Sherlock's Mind Palace before clothes were removed and areas were re-familiarised with.

000

The boys lay in a tangle of sheets and limbs on Magnus' bed an hour later.

"I never saw your hair its natural colour" Magnus stated looking to James' head and idly stroking his fingers across the skin of the doctors' forearm.

"Should I call you Sherlock, or Magnus?" James asked with a wide smile.

"Which do you prefer?" Magnus asked, pressing a kiss to James' temple.

"I prefer Sherlock Holmes to _Magnus Cumberbatch_" James quoted with a laugh.

"Good. Because I prefer John Watson to James Freeman" Magnus countered.

James' smile faded from view as he ran the thoughts over in his head.

"We cannot call ourselves Sherlock and John again. People would know" James said sadly.

"Yes, it could become very complicated" Magnus agreed. "Oh damn it!" he exclaimed, grasping James' wrist tightly.

"What?" James asked in sudden panic.

"I just remembered that I have done that experiment before, John!" Magnus erupted. "I did that same experiment when I was 28" he said staring at the ceiling.

James started to laugh and curled up tighter to Magnus' side.

After a while Magnus reached off the side of the bed for his abandoned trousers.

"Euch, that's it, I am going to a tailors first thing tomorrow. I can't believe you let me wear these for so long, John" Magnus exclaimed as he rifled through the pockets searching for something.

Finding what he was looking for, Magnus lay back against the pillows.

"You did find me" James mumbled quietly.

"What?" Magnus asked with a raised eyebrow.

"You're last words to me; you said that you would find me. You did." James said, looking up at Magnus who was now tapping lightly at his iphone.

"Obviously." Magnus said dully.

"I wonder if Mrs Hudson came back? And Mycroft?" James asked excitedly, running an index finger over the skin of Magnus' chest.

"John, they won't remember, and we cannot allow them to. I don't know how it is possible that we have; but I think its testament to our relationship being incredibly strong." Magnus said thoughtfully, now scrolling on his iphone.

"Sherlock" James started as he lifted himself on one arm. "As this is a new life; a fresh start" James said uncomfortably. "You can always go and live a different life, you don't _have_ to live the same life again…with…with me." James finished awkwardly.

At this, Magnus looked up from his phone to his flatmate. "John, you are incredibly stupid" he said flatly. "If you were to leave me now, which I am assuming is not your desired choice, I think I would probably not make it past the age of 30." Magnus said dully. "Now shut up and lie back down, I'm getting cold."

James smiled widely as he freely lay down half atop the detective, his nose buried deep in Magnus' neck.

Wrapping his arms around James, Magnus continued to use his iphone busily and there was a contented silence between the two for the next half hour.

"John, congratulations you are now Doctor John Cumberbatch, officially – best I could do" Magnus said flatly as he continued to tap at his iphone.

"What? How-?" John started to ask.

"And I am now Sherlock Cumberbatch." Sherlock said idly.

"How did you-?" John tried again.

"It would appear that my brother, Lucius, a little less annoying than Mycroft yes, definitely has the same soul too. He has just informed me that he has become the leading party for the British Government. Dear me he must be getting slower, took him 4 years less last time to achieve that." Sherlock drawled as he dropped his phone onto the nightstand.

"Did he ask why we wanted to change names?" John asked incredulously.

"Yes, I said 'for idiotic reasons' and he did not question it further" Sherlock said with a smile.

"What will Scotland Yard say?" John groaned as he pushed his forehead into Sherlock's shoulder.

"They will not question it. I have told Graves that we have simply returned to our original names; he thinks we were on the legal register as Lucius has now set up." Sherlock said dully.

Still unconvinced, John looked to Sherlock's face.

"I love you, Sherlock. I didn't tell you enough. But I love you" John said, resting his chin on his hand as it lay atop Sherlock's chest.

"As I love you, John" Sherlock replied with a smile. "Now, we are two very fit, young and healthy individuals; what do you say to a whole night of it, Doctor Cumberbatch?" he asked with a wicked glint in his eye.

John laughed heartily as he was turned over and pinned down.

"I don't think I have a choice, Mr Cumberbatch." John said in a laugh.

_The End_


End file.
